In the manufacture of dough products, it is many times necessary to obtain a dough ball that has as uniformly a round shape as possible, and particularly in the manufacture of dough products on a commercial scale.
In such commercial scale manufacturing of dough products, when a dough ball that has a uniformly round shape is needed, dough that has been mixed and cut into pieces having consistent weight need to be shaped. One manner of shaping such dough is to use rounder bars disposed over a moving belt. As shown in FIG. 1A, rounder bars 10 are positioned over a moving belt 8 at an angle, typically between 10 and 15 degrees with respect to the moving belt 8. As a dough piece disposed on the belt comes in contact with any one of the rounder bars 10 (although three are shown, only one is needed and may be used), the dough is shaped due to the contact with the rounder bar 10, so that as the dough exits the rounder bar 10, still moving along the belt 8, it will have as uniform a round shape as possible.
A conventional rounder bar 10 is illustrated in more detail in FIGS. 1B and 1C. As shown, there is a blade 12 and a rounder portion 14, which are typically two different pieces. Since the tip 12A of the blade 12 will contact the moving belt during use, there is typically provided a space 14, known as the dimple gap, to accommodate for wear and tear on the blade. Thus, if the tip 12A of the blade becomes worn, it can be replaced without needing to replace the rounder portion 14. Further, the rounder portion 12, as best illustrated in FIG. 1C, has a smooth concave surface that is presented to the arriving piece of dough. This surface, however, will typically compress the dough ball in a compression area 16, and then allow the dough ball to gradually expand in expansion area 18, using substantially uniform tapering of the rounder portion 14, before exiting the rounder bar 10.
Although the conventional rounder bar 10 discussed above does improve the shape of the resulting dough ball, the shape is not improved enough for certain applications. In particular, as shown in FIG. 2, as the dough moves along the rounder bar 10, there is a spinning action that takes place of the dough ball with respect to the rounder bar 10, and a spin axis associated therewith. In particular, the resulting dough ball is not as uniform as would be desired. Further, a dimple is caused to exist on the dough ball due to the existence of the dimple gap 14 discussed above. While the existence of this dimple is not problematic for certain types of dough products, it can be for others, particularly dough balls used in the making of round tortillas.